112 EULOGY ON THOMAS YOUNG. 



at tlie same time the impression, tlie weight, and the inscription. 

 These reflections tend to show why the names of such men as Herschel, 

 Davy, or Volta ought to be mentioned in our assemblies before tliose 

 of many celebrated Academicians whom death has snatched from our 

 more immediate circle. Moreover, I lio})e that after what I vshall be 

 able to adduce, even in a few minutes, no one will be able to denj- that 

 the man of universal science, whose life 1 am about to describe, and 

 whose labors I shall analyze, has some real claims to preference. 



BIIiTH OF YOUNG — HIS CHILDHOOD — FIRST ENTKANCE ON HIS SCIEN- 

 TIFIC CAREER. 



Thomas Young was born at Milverton, in the county of Somerset, 

 June 13, 1773, of parents who belonged to the Society of Friends. Ho 

 passed his earliest years at the house of his maternal grandfather, Mr. 

 Eobert Davies, of Minehead, whom the active business of commerce 

 had not been able to divert from the cultivation of classical literature. 

 Young could read fluently at the age of two years. His memory was 

 extraordinary. In the intervals of his attendance at the house of a 

 village schoolmistress in the neighborhood of Minehead, at four years 

 old, he had learned by lieart a number of English authors, and even 

 several Latin poems, which he could repeat from beginning to end, al- 

 thongh he did not understand a word of the language. The example 

 of Young, like many others of celebrity recorded by biographers, may, 

 then, contribute to keep up the common prepossession of so many good 

 fathers of families, who see in certain lessons, according as they may be 

 recited without faults on the one hand, or are badly learned on the 

 other, infallible indications of an eternal mediocrity in the one case, or 

 the beginning of a glorious career in the other. It would, indeed, be 

 far from our object if these historical notices should tend to strengthen 

 such prejudices. Thus, without wishing to weaken the vivid and pure 

 emotions which every year the distribution of prizes excites, we may 

 remind some, in order that they may not abandon themselves to dreams 

 which they will not realize, and others, in order to fortify" them against 

 discouragement, that Picus de Mirandola, the phenix of learners of all 

 ages and countries, became in mature age an insignificant writer ; that 

 Newton, that powerful intellect of whom Voltaire in some well-known 

 lines asks the angels whether they are not jealous — the great Newton, 

 we observe, made but indifferent progress in the classes of his school ; 

 that study had for him no attractions ; that the first time he felt the 

 wish to labor, it was merely to take the place of a turbulent school- 

 fellow who, by reason of his rank in the school, was seated on a form above 

 him and annoyed him by kicks ; that at the age of twenty-two he was 

 a candidate for a fellowship at Cambridge, and was beaten by one Kobert 

 Uvedale, whose name but for this circumstance would have remained 

 to this day perfectly unknown; that. Fontenelle, lastly, was more inge- 

 nious than exact when he applied to Newton the words of Lucan, "It is 

 not given to men to see the Nile feeble and at its source." 



At the age of six years Young entered under a teacher at Bristol,* 

 whose mediocrity was a fortunate circumstance for him. This, gentle- 

 men, is no paradox ; the pupil, not being able to accommodate himself to 

 the slow and limited steps which his master took, became his own in- 

 structor. It is thus that those brilliant qualities developed themselves 

 which too much aid would certainlv have enervated. 



* The master, Avhose unme was King, at first kept school at Stapleton, and thence 

 removed to Towneud, both near Bristol. Young's acquaintance with the surveyor 

 commenced after he quitted that school. (See Peacock's Life, p. 5.) — Tuaxslatok. 



